Lorentz Transformations for Electromagnetism

Highlights of the activity

1. This small group activity is designed to help upper division undergraduate students realize the connection between special relativity and electromagnetism.
2. Students work in groups and derive part of the Lorentz transformations for electromagnetism.
3. The whole class wrap-up discussion feeds into a lecture summarizing the group work and details the behavior of electromagnetic fields in special relativity, thus allowing students to connect their understanding of electromagnetic fields to their previous work on length contraction.

Reasons to spend class time on the activity

1. This is an opportunity for students to see explicitly how length contraction implies Lorentz transformations for E and B fields.
2. Students have a chance to wrestle with the nuances of the derivation.
3. Demonstrates the utility of using hyperbola geometry.

Reflections

• Reflections from the original implementation.

• Reflections from "official" adapters/adopters.

• Reflections from the general public.

Instructor's Guide

• Wiki version

Student Handouts

rfemlorentzhand.pdf

rfemlorentzhand.tex